Digitally remastered vinyl record? Seriously?


Hi folks, this is my first post in the forum. Today I went to my favorite coffee shop/record shop. They had the legendary U2 album "The Joshua Tree" as a 180g audiophile vinyl record which proudly wore a sticker "digitally remastered".

Well, I might be to nit-picky but doesn't that defeat the purpose? We love vinyl because it's an analog source which has all the beauty and vibrance of analog recordings. If you run it through an A-D converter, remaster and then run it back through a DAC (who knows what hardware they're using?) and press it in vinyl, you might lose the analog kick, don't you?

What's your opinion and experience?
mblfan
Not sure about Joshua Tree, but Dark Side of The Moon 30th anniversary edition is digitally re-mastered as well and sounds like dream.
Digital remasters these days are generally quite good. One more option to consider.
Hey, don't feel bad. I just noticed the same thing last week on some cassettes I picked up. Would you believe they were from the 80s?
These days, after 50 years of listening to records, CDs, tapes, you name it, my gut tells me the records with unique sonic merit over the alternatives worth investing in are mostly those from the days when analog gear was used solely in their creation, which was often the case through the sixties and somewhat into the seventies after which digital took over.

Having said that there are many recordings from that era even that benefit these days from a good digital remastering. At that point, I'd just go with the digital source material but I could see where newer vinyl renditions might have something unique to offer. But even then, modern vinyl is not a slam dunk soundwise. Its more expensive than ever and quality control became more hit or miss over the years since the early "golden age" of vinyl/analog.